


The Lonely Night

by thevaliantdust



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, Episode 61 spoilers, Gen, Panic Attacks, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 11:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7617106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thevaliantdust/pseuds/thevaliantdust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode 61 Spoilers</p>
<p>Vox Machina fight and win, but at what cost? </p>
<p>Canon-divergent musings on Keyleth being the only member of the team not petrified after the pixie encounter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lonely Night

The inferno rips from her bones, her hands alight. One by one the pixies fall, struck in quick succession by her storm of fire. The battlefield falls silent. She drops to her knees, spent but alive. And suddenly very alone.

It takes all her might to lift her head, the tightness in her chest increasing with each stone figure she finds around her. A near perfect circle, in fact. It would be hilarious and impressive if she weren’t struggling to breathe in terror. 

She reaches for the nearest one, Percy, she notices in the back of her mind, and dredges up the last of her magical reserves, pouring it into him.

Nothing. She has nothing.

A gasping, heaving sob chokes its way up her throat. She wraps her arms around herself, clinging to her sides, desperately trying to hold herself together. Some part of her knows this isn’t the end, she can fix this, fix them all if she can just get some rest. But she is tired and hurting and so, so scared, and it’s the fucking Feywild and she’s just _really fucking sick_ of the fucking Feywild.

So she lays down on the ground and cries. Her muffled sobs diffuse amongst the trees in this oddly silent place. Her body shakes in a way that exacerbates her bruised ribs and aching muscles, but that only makes her cry harder.

She doesn’t really even understand why she’s so upset. As someone who often feels lonely, often feels like an outsider among these friends of her, why should it matter to spent one night without them? 

And yet she imagines Percy’s conniving grin as they make inane bets and chokes out another sob of longing. She plays back Scanlan’s unabashed innuendos, Grog’s hearty chuckle, Vex’s mildly begrudging smirk whenever she so much as looked at- 

Vax, with his kind smile and his arms around her, the gentle brush of his fingers across hers whenever he could steal a quiet moment.

She sucks in another shuddering breath, clawing for air that just won’t go into her lungs. She feels the edges of her vision grow black and knows she needs to breathe or she’ll pass out. 

She thinks back to the last time it got this bad. She hears Vax counting slowly, calmly in her head, hears Percy’s firm commands “breathe in, hold, breathe out”. She feels Vex rubbing slow circles on her back, Pike’s healing hands on her shoulders.

And she pushes the very last of the air out of her lungs.

Breathe in.

Count.

Breathe out.

One. Two. Three. Four. Again.

Slow, achingly slow, her breath returns, her vision clears, the pounding in her head ebbs away.

When she can find the strength she sits up and looks around. Her chest still shakes with residual sobs but for the moment her eyes are dry.

Five stone figures circle her, familiar as her own face. She stands and walks over to Vex, who has her bow halfway drawn, a drawn look on her face, eyes flicked to the stone figure beside her. Percy. 

Keyleth remembers him being petrified, right before all hell broke loose and she lost track. She remembers Vex’s frantic yelling as she raced towards him, determined to end the little fairy shit that got him. Though Keyleth had not seen it at the time, the outcome was obvious. And Vax, next to his sister, had likely befallen the same fate.

Sometimes she wonders if the bond between them all is more of a weakness than a strength. Undoubtedly there are times these people have stood in her way, have caused her missteps. Certainly there are times where she has caused them harm too. Yet imagining a future without them aches too much to even consider.

She chuckles wetly as she realises that this moment is essentially an unwelcome sneak preview of her life once she completes her Ara Mente. The sole survivour of the legendary Vox Machina, looking back on her friends’ faces as distant memories. There’s something so frustratingly poignant about how this all turned out, she begins to giggle in earnest- a manic giggle but a giggle none the less.

Eventually she comes around, the overload of emotion seeping from her body, along with all the warmth, leaving her drained and shivering. The bag of holding is stone at Grog’s side, as is Vex’s necklace, so can’t even release Trinket for company.

After a few moments of pacing pointlessly between the stone statues of her friends, she eventually curls up in a patch of long grass somewhere in the middle of the group. She’ll rest, and bring them back, and all will be as it should. They’ll never speak of this lonely night again.

She gazes up at the starless sky. If she doesn’t think about it too hard, she can imagine the stone figures circumscribing her are a protective circle. A nice thought, however far from the truth. Enough, at least, for fitful sleep to prevail.


End file.
